Chicago startups aim to reduce bike theft, speed recovery

BikeSpike tracking device, new registry are the latest tools

October 06, 2013|By Lauren Zumbach, Chicago Tribune reporter

A bicyclist and jogger cross North Avenue at Milwaukee Avenue as the sun rises on a late March morning. (John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune)

Clay Neigher didn't think much of it when the sound of sawing awoke him in the middle of the night. The next morning, the Boston resident's bike was gone and the porch he'd locked it to was in a shambles.

Neigher, who now lives in Chicago, wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. He, with co-founders Josh Billions and Bill Fienup, developed the BikeSpike, an anti-theft device that alerts a bike's owner to tampering and tracks its movement.

BikeSpike isn't the only Chicago startup trying reduce bike theft, which is a headache for owners despite sophisticated locks and police registries that keep track of serial numbers.

The Bike Index is building a universal registry to make it easier for cyclists to prove ownership and get bikes back.

Founder Seth Herr said he got the idea for a better registry after working as a mechanic at Kozy's Cyclery.

"What was frustrating was sending people out after getting their new bike all ready, telling them they really ought to register it, knowing they probably wouldn't and hearing about thefts later," Herr said.

The Chicago Police Department doesn't track bike thefts separately from other kinds of theft. But the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry (chicago.stolenbike.org), a website for cyclists hoping to reclaim their property, received 179 reports of missing bikes or bike parts in August alone.

Only about 4 percent of stolen bicycles are recovered, said Bryan Hance, creator of the Stolen Bicycle Registry (stolenbicycleregistry.com), a database of stolen bike reports in the U.S. and Canada.

Locating a stolen bike is the first challenge. That's what the BikeSpike team aims to help with. The device contains an accelerometer and a GPS unit that can sense when the bike moves or falls and track it. The BikeSpike can also detect a crash and notify emergency contacts, Billions said.

It attaches to the frame near the water bottle holder. The bolts that keep the device in place require a special wrench given to BikeSpike owners, Neigher said.

In April, the team raised more than $150,000 on the crowd funding site Kickstarter to put a prototype into production. In September, the team showed off the BikeSpike at the Interbike trade show in Las Vegas. The BikeSpike can be pre-ordered for $129 (bikespike.com), and Neigher hopes to ship them by spring.

Getting a stolen bike back legally is the next hurdle, which is where the Bike Index comes in.

Cyclists and bike advocates said it's tough to get help if the bike isn't registered with local police.

"The police have limited resources, and without registering that serial number, it's very hard to make a legal claim to ownership," said Jason Jenkins, an education specialist with the Active Transportation Alliance, a group that advocates for cycling and walking in Chicago.

But most people either don't register their bike with police or don't realize they need to keep track of their bike's serial number until it's too late, Herr said. So he wanted to create a way to register bikes before they left the shop with their new owner.

The Bike Index (bikeindex.org) is working with about 10 bicycle shops in Chicago and has registered more than 600 bikes, Herr said. The team has started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to expand to other cities.

While the police registry is only available to law enforcement, anyone can register or look up a bike in the Bike Index. Most cyclists will do what they can to avoid buying a stolen bike, and checking the index gives them a way to make sure the person trying to sell a bike is its registered owner, Herr said.

Police could also access it to check a recovered bike that isn't registered with the city, he said.

Max Hertz, co-owner of The Bike Lane, which is registering customers through the Bike Index, said he often has wished there were a way his mechanics could help get bikes back to their rightful owners.

"We'll see bikes that are suspect and Google them, but if no one has reported it stolen and there's no way to verify who owns it, there's nothing we can do," Hertz said.

Registering through a bike shop is free.

While Jenkins said any extra protection helps, he cautioned against putting too much faith in either BikeSpike or the Bike Index. The Active Transportation Alliance encourages basic theft prevention measures including buying a quality U-lock and learning to use it correctly and avoiding leaving the bike in the same place each day.

"Recovery is still fairly rare, so an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," Jenkins said.

But Hance, who has been running his registry since the late 1990s and has seen a lot of anti-theft tools come and go, said the Bike Index and BikeSpike seem promising.

"Neither of these is going to keep someone from stealing your bike, but they're great ideas that could leave you a little safer," he said.